Читать книгу The Man Who Forgot Christmas (Musaicum Christmas Specials) - Max Brand - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Alp did not like it, no matter from what angle he looked at it. It was foreign to him. The game was not his. He was used to playing a lone hand and now he lay like a rabbit in a covert, not knowing what was expected of him, or if he would have courage to carry through the part assigned him. If it had been spring weather, he kept saying to himself, with a good, clear sky to pour content through the mind of a man and air through which one could see, things would have been very different with him. His one comfort was the bright eye of his companion. Cold had turned the fingers of Jack Chapel purple around the knuckles, but for some reason Alp could not imagine him stopped or even seriously embarrassed by such a thing as cold.

Yet he asked to make assurance doubly sure: "Pretty smooth with a gun?"

"Me? Smooth with a gun?" asked the heavyshouldered young fellow. "Why, Lou, I couldn't hit the side of a barn with a rifle, let alone a revolver."

The terror which had been reined up in Lou Alp's vitals now burst loose and flooded him. The chill which swept through him was a mortal cold that had nothing to do with either wind or snow. It was fear, horrible, strength-devouring fear. He could not even speak, as he heard his companion continue carelessly.

"But what does gun work have to do with it? I wouldn't hurt those two fellows if I could. Their boss is a skunk. He deserves anything that comes his way, but I don't hold any grudge against those two fellows. Not me! But there'll be no shooting. No, all you need for a game like this is a little bluff and some sand."

He followed his statement with his usual chuckle. Alp was seized in a fresh amazement. There were qualities about this man which never grew old. There was a surprising freshness, a nearness to the soil. Two things about him spoke the two sides of his nature. There were the bright, steady, and dangerous eyes. Lou Alp had been among the defiers of society long enough to recognize that glance. On the other hand, there was that ready chuckle. It came deeply out of his throat; it was musical, changing, and redolent with good nature. It was a laugh which instantly made a roomful of people smile and turn around. It was a laugh which never offended because there was not the slightest suggestion of mockery or derision or self complacency in it.

Yet it failed to warm the trembling heart of the thief at this juncture. He continued to stare as though at a revelation of madness.

"But for heaven's sake..." was all he could say. Then: "I've been wonderin' about your gun, where you been keepin' it all this time?"

"Here," said the other and, reaching above him, he snapped off a twig, shook the snow from it, and presented to Lou Alp the frost-blackened, curved fragment of wood. The sneak thief threw back his head and began to laugh wildly. The sound came up through his slender throat cackling. It was singularly like the wind-shaken scream of some bird of prey.

"That!" he cried. "Man, don't you know that you got two armed men to handle? Don't you know that they're lookin' for trouble? That's why they're with the coin! And even if you had a gun..." he broke off, unable to continue. Then: "Let's get out of this. I'm froze clear through."

"What's the matter?" asked Chapel. "Don't you trust me?"

Again Alp was staggered. He had dragged his cold-cramped body to his knees and now he paused, agape. He was about to say, "What has trust got to do with powder and lead?" but he checked himself. It occurred to him that this singular fellow might be angered by any doubts cast upon him; already there was the queer, thoughtful flicker in his eyes, and Alp dropped back into his bed of leaves and snow. It came to him that much as he dreaded the storm and the coming of the armed men, he dreaded Jack Chapel even more. He knew now why the twelve good men and true had looked into the face of this man and had believed all too readily, with only the most circumstantial evidence to back their belief, that he had been guilty of a murder. Aside from the escape from the prison he had never seen Chapel meet danger or perform any violent act, and yet he was ready to premise the most tremendous things of this bright-eyed man.

He lay back in the snow without a word and began to massage his lips with his knuckles, so as to be able to speak when he had mentally framed his argument. He must prevent this incipient act of madness that would destroy them both. His agile brain began to turn and twist around the subject, looking back on a score of arguments; but, when he was on the verge of beginning, there was a low exclamation from Jack Chapel.

"They're here!"

He cast one wild glance down the road, but a whirl of snow rose and closed the way before him. Then, like the coward that he was, he looked to his companion, prepared with the protest, prepared with the plea, to let the danger and the money pass. He was stopped by the singular expression of happiness in the face of his companion. Somewhere he had seen such a look. Now he remembered. It was when he had taken a girl out of the slums to the theater; when the curtain slipped up, in the dim glow from the stage, he had turned and watched the face of the girl, her lips parted, her eyes at once dreaming, wistful, and eager.

Such was the face of Jack Chapel. The same hushed expectancy, the same trembling alertness, the same love of the unknown that lay before him. Now, through the curtain of the snow, the heads of two horses thrust out, powdered and unreal. Instantly the whole of the buckboard and the two men who rode in it came out upon Lou Alp. They were humped into bunches of flesh, shrinking from the cold, made numb and sleepy by it. Looking up at them they seemed huge and formidable to Alp. A shudder went through his meager body when he thought of a single man, armed with a bent twig, trying to halt that on-sweeping force of horses and wagon and fighting men.

Chapel was on his hands and feet like a runner at the mark. The wagon rushed nearer, rattling above the hum of wind and the soft crushing of the snow among the naked trees. Suddenly the man leaped out from behind his screen with a deep shout.

The horses stopped and veered to one side, cramping the wagon dangerously. The men in the wagon sat and stared stupidly at the apparition. There stood Jack Chapel before them, crouched a little, with the twig in his hand not extended at full arm's length, but drawn back close to his breast. For the moment Alp forgot that it was simply a crooked piece of wood. He expected to see fire flash from the end of it.

The guards must have expected the same thing. For they made no attempt at resistance, but slowly—or was it the feverish activity of Lou's mind that made it seem slow—they put their hands up to their shoulders and then, inch by inch, above their heads.

Chapel was barking orders. Obediently they climbed down and turned their backs, still with hands above their heads. Jack went to them at a run, still speaking swiftly, cautioning them not to make a suspicious move. He jerked a revolver out of the holster that hung at the hip of one of them and tossed his twig away.

Lou Alp stood up. The blood was beginning to run freely again in his veins. A spot of red stood out in the hollow of each sallow, thin cheek. For the madman was turning his madness into sane matter of fact. With his twig he had rendered two stalwart men helpless. With a cry of encouragement, Lou was about to step out and render such help as he was capable of when the second of the guards, whose revolver had not yet been taken, jerked down his arms, whirled, and fired.

It happened with incredible suddenness. Lou felt his left leg go numb, but he forgot that, giving his whole attention on Chapel. He expected to see that broad, strong form topple to the earth. Instead, his friend smashed the fist that carried the revolver into the face of the man who had just fired. The fellow tossed up both arms, staggered back, and sank slowly into the snow. His companion, turning at the shot, grappled the bandit. For a moment they swayed and twisted and then were torn apart. The guard came close again, his arms reaching out. He was met by the lunging fist of Chapel and dropped loosely upon his face.

By the time Alp's brain began to work, he felt the numbness in his leg give place to a sharp pain, as though a red-hot knife had been thrust into his calf and left there to burn the flesh. Not until then did he realize that he had been shot through the leg by that first wild bullet from the gun of the guard. A red trickle was running out over his trousers. He watched it, fascinated.

Chapel was tying the fallen guards. Now that the danger was past, Lou attempted to go to him, but his left leg crumbled beneath his weight. Lying on his side, he saw his friend climb into the buckboard, take up a box, smash the lock with a bullet, and then drop to the snow with a stack of what he knew to be money. Chapel was counting it. Was it possible that the fool was only taking the thirty-five hundred? There must be at least twelve thousand in that payroll!

He dragged himself out from the covert at the same time that the other finished dumping his loot into a sack. Chapel was instantly beside him with an exclamation while tears of self-pity rose into the eyes of Alp.

"The dirty swine," he moaned. "Look what they done to me? Will you? And what harm was I doin' 'em?"

Before he answered, Chapel knelt beside Lou, ripped up the leg of his trousers, and examined the wound. "It's an easy one," he said. He was tearing away his own coat as he spoke, and now he ripped his undershirt into strips and made a swift and skillful bandage. "Clean as a whistle, Lou," he went on reassuringly. "You won't lose a tablespoonful of blood hardly. Keep your chin up, will you?"

A hot rage sent a mist across the vision of Lou. "Pump 'em full of lead!" he said through his teeth.

"Why?" asked Jack Chapel.

"Didn't they do this? You ask me why?"

Something in the face of his companion cleared Alp's eyes again. He saw that Chapel was looking at him with a curiously cold glance.

"It was just a chance that you got hurt," he said. "Besides, do you blame 'em for tryin' to protect the stuff they were sent out to guard? No, they showed they had... courage. I like 'em all the better for it, but the luck was against 'em. And that's the only reason why we're not blown full of lead, the way you want me to fix them now that they got their hands tied."

Lou Alp forgot the pain of his wound as he met the new glance of Chapel.

"Say, Bo," he grinned feebly. "You don't think I meant it, do you? The leg was hurting like fire and it peeved me for a minute."

"Sure," said Jack Chapel slowly, "I know what you mean. Only..." He did not finish the sentence.